Pages 71-80 - Oswestry School

THE ST DAVID’S DAY CONCERTA review of the St David’s Day concertThere cannot have been many occasions when HolyTrinity Parish Church coped with a bigger audience thanthat for the St David’s Day Concert presented by OswestrySchool as part of celebrations for its 600th anniversary.Literally with standing room only, an appreciative followingof staff, parents and guests rose to congratulate organizer,the director of music Mrs Sue Morris, on a magnificentprogramme of choral and instrumental music from earlytimes to the contemporary, under the umbrella of OswestrySchool. We were treated to a well-managed, easy-going andenjoyable evening of remarkable talent.The first half began with the Porthywaen Silver Band,conducted by David Thomas, playing a medley of Welshmusic in the manner to which they are so well suited. MaeHen Wlad Fy Nhadau caught the audience somewhat bysurprise and only a handful rose to their feet to sing theWelsh National Anthem on the day of their patron saint,which was something of a disappointment but, no matter,the tone was set.There followed that delightful version of Psalm 23 byHoward Goodall, legendary as the theme tune to the Vicarof Dibley, sung by the choir of Oswestry School’s pre-prepdepartment, Bellan House. Conductor Mrs Juliet Woollamhas this choir extremely well trained: their diction wasimpeccable and the soloists, Elliot Blount-Pownell, TomNicholas, Jack Woolf and Jamie Jones, were meticulous intheir intonation and projection. It was hard to believe thesechildren are only in years 3 and 4.Moving up a generation, the junior choir of OswestrySchool, conducted by Mrs Karen Lentink, sang the pieceSound The Trumpet from Come Ye Sons of Art by Henry Purcell.Though one is used to hearing this performed by a pair ofsolo soprani, the two parts of the choir were precise in theexecution of some tricky running passages, whilst entrieswere both accurate and secure.It is tempting to state that the“professionals” were next to performbut of course, Cantiones, though anamateur chamber choir, is of, quitesimply, professional standard. The twocontrasting works, sung under theleadership of musical director GerryHowe, were, as expected, faultless:first Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, then therousing Parry anthem I Was Gladaccompanied by organist ChristopherSymons.There followed, for me, thehighlight of the evening, as all ages combined for JohnRutter’s Look at The World. Though not particularly familiarit was instantly recognizable as Rutter (as Alice Tinker wouldhave said, “I can’t believe it’s not Rutter”!) and thejuxtaposition of the various voices from the youngestchildren to the most mature adults was most moving. It ismuch to be hoped that those small and medium childrenwill one day be the leading voices in choirs such asCantiones.The Armed Man—A Mass for Peace by the Welsh composerKarl Jenkins was the sole work of the second half of theconcert, for which the senior choir of Oswestry Schoolcombined with Cantiones, accompanied by guests fromOswestry Sinfonia, the Shropshire Youth Orchestra andPorthywaen Band.The work is an odd mixture of genres, with parts of highchurch mass interspersed with settings of 20th-centurypoetry, excerpts from the Mahabharata, and psalms. Themusic is equally diverse, at times simple, tuneful andpoignant, elsewhere in the best traditions of big filmsoundtrack, and in yet other places repetitive or almostcontrived in atonality. On the whole, however, the massedchoirs made the best of every movement, the school choirbraving the wide range of pitch without hesitation, whileCantiones provided bulk and support for the youngsters.Individuals from school staff and Cantiones dealt with theshort solo passages but all praise must be levelled at thestudents themselves who had so much to execute and whocarried it off splendidly.It was no wonder that Mrs Morris shone with suchgenuine admiration for them all as the evening drew to aclose.Mrs Lentink and the junior choir at Holy Trinity Parish Church74 – The Oswestrian